What I learned from video games - Street fighter 2 edition

@Deadspace had sort of a writing prompt/challenge based around the concept of "why games are good" which you can see here and it gave me some inspiration for a rare "written" post.

In deadspaces original challenge it is about listing four games, but for now I am going to post about one. Probably not my favorite game and maybe not even top 4 but one of the games I learned the most from - Street fighter 2.

Some view video games as a waste of time or you cant learn anything etc and I view it somewhat different. Now granted the vast majority could just be wasting time and getting nothing out of them but for me that was not the case. I find if you try to do almost anything in life at a high level you will learn from it.

I was one of the very competitive people in my youth, not to be seen as better than others but to really test out my limits of what I could do in many facets. Street fighter 2 when it came out in arcade took competitive gaming to a new level because of the nature of Direct PVP. There would be lines of quarters all placed on the screen from the challengers and many people standing around to watch and play. The standard rule was winner stays challenger pays.

At the height of its popularity I managed to show up at the arcade when it opened and on multiple occasions I stayed all the way till close without losing a match and constant play from challengers all day. At the time I was proud of that because it was a whole day of entertainment off the initial 50 cents, plus serious nerd cred for being a SF2 bad ass lol.

One of the first things I learned and really sunk in was how many people fold from pressure alone. Its just a game and its meaningless but they would get frustrated by a loss or when trying to overcome a tactic that they werent used to seeing or playing against. I noticed that trait right away separated many players and pretty much assured if you got frustrated easily you wouldnt be able to take the next step in skill. To me that frustration is all mental, you can control it, so why get frustrated ?

I notice that people folding under pressure is pretty much universal through aspects of life and if you simply dont fold you can overcome things that others who may be more talented or skilled cannot. I think that is one of the most important keys to life and one greatly under your own control and I learned it well playing video games.

I used to go to different arcades all across the country just to find new people to play at the game. I remember in NJ coming across someone who just had my number when playing at first. I didnt win a game, I spent 20 dollars till I could finally beat him, that was like 40 losses in row. Side note I thought it was super cool he played me that many games cause I would have been pissed to not have figured out how to beat him. What was interesting is once I started beating him he couldnt beat me after playing again later.

Because of the fast speed of the game it really tuned into instincts and the ability to almost instantly read someones intent before they acted, are they going to attack high or low? That ability to read intent I think spreads over into many non gaming related facets. It also gives you insight into how to act in a way others dont expect, practicing that pays off.

I was heavy into reading philosphy at the time as well and it always reminded me of this quote below from the writer Baltasar Gracian, which I strongly suggest reading his book "art of worldy wisdom"

xiii Act sometimes on Second Thoughts, sometimes on First Impulse.

"Man's life is a warfare against the malice of men. Sagacity fights with strategic changes of intention: it never does what it threatens, it aims only at escaping notice. It aims in the air with dexterity and strikes home in an unexpected direction, always seeking to conceal its game. It lets a purpose appear in order to attract the opponent's attention, but then turns round and conquers by the unexpected. But a penetrating intelligence anticipates this by watchfulness and lurks in ambush. It always understands the opposite of what the opponent wishes it to understand, and recognises every feint of guile. It lets the first impulse pass by and waits for the second, or even the third. Sagacity now rises to higher flights on seeing its artifice foreseen, and tries to deceive by truth itself, changes its game in order to change its deceit, and cheats by not cheating, and founds deception on the greatest candour. But the opposing intelligence is on guard with increased watchfulness, and discovers the darkness concealed by the light and deciphers every move, the more subtle because more simple. In this way the guile of the Python combats the far darting rays of Apollo."

The above concept I honed a lot while playing video games in particular "It always understands the opposite of what the opponent wishes it to understand". The fast pace of video games I feel really will reduce things down to acting on instinct and that instinct can be applied in different ways throughout life.

I rarely play these days but when I do you can see the same old lessons surface. I may have to write another of these about some other things learned from gaming. I didnt adhere to any of the rules to this challenge but I wanted to write about it anyway :)